Planning Under Uncertainty: SDIO and the Emerging U.S.-Soviet Interaction.
Abstract
The GAMA Corporation provides services to corporations and state and federal government agencies in strategic planning and contingency preparedness. GAMA specializes in gaming and analyzing situations characterized by high uncertainty or adversarial positions; e.g.: Colombia's drug war; energy emergencies, natural disasters, R&D choices; and debt negotiations. Since 1985, the GAMA Corporation has conducted over 90 strategic planning and contingency gaming sessions. These projects have involved over 1500 participants. Such scenario-based planning and gaming is the process of developing plans which test, rather than assume, the responses of opposing powers or interest groups. GAMA uses electronic polling and computer techniques to capture the essence of what experts believe, and why. This method of structured planning sessions is intended not to predict a single-point outcome, but to increase the understanding of an issue by analyzing it from several perspectives, to include those with opposing objectives. The use of gaming as a tool for strategic planning can yield both insights and consensus about major issues. The last two planning sessions -- (at the Naval War College, Newport in October 1989 and in the SDIO conference room in December 1989) -- yielded a similarity and a pattern described as follows. The purpose of the two sessions was to "Think Red" and determine how to cooperate with the U.S. on SDI, and then to "Think Blue" about the technology management implications of possible Red proposals/actions. (The figures refer to the quantitative judgments of the participants.)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 15, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA344799
Entities
People
- J. D. Carlson
- J. E. Burke
- L. Burger
- R. D. Bleach